I’ll Never Be Good Enough For You

If I’m being honest, I knew we wouldn’t work out. I really wanted us to. I wanted us to be right for each other. I wanted to think we were a match, an even pair, equal partners. But I knew that wasn’t the truth. Throughout our entire relationship, I kept coming back to one thought: “I will never be good enough for you.”

You didn’t do anything to make me feel this way. It’s something I just knew in my bones. Come on. Look at who we are in an objective way. I will never be good enough for someone as wonderful as you.

You are good. You are a good person who wants and does good things. You are smart and kind and funny. Your body and mind are practically made of sunshine.

I will never be the person you want. Not really. I can be a shadow of that person, striving really hard to actually get there. But I never will. There will always be something missing or some flaw or something that doesn’t feel quite right.

My clothes are wrong. Or my hair is out of place. Or my skin isn’t behaving. But more than that, I’m not funny or entertaining. I’m not holding your attention. I’m not smart enough, or maybe I don’t know about the right things. Whatever I’m contributing to the conversation just isn’t working. I’m trying too hard and then because I’m worried it seems like I’m trying too hard, I try harder.

I am the Ann Perkins to your Chris Traeger, or the Jordan Catalano to your Angela Chase. I can try as hard as I want, but I will never be as good or as pure as you are — as you want me to be. That’s why I want to be around you. I had this idea that you would make me better by osmosis, that the more I kissed you or touched you or talked to you, the more worthy I’d become.

But that’s not the way it works, is it? Instead I just started to feel worse. It became increasingly apparent that I was bad news bears, a check in the negative column, a no-good influence on your life. I’m messed up. But you, you are good. You are amazing. You are perfect and honest and loyal. You have good intentions, always.

You’re like a butterfly and I’m some less-than being sticking a pin in your back. I will never be good enough for you. The idea depresses me. It’s depressed me since I realized it was true. But I don’t know what to do. You deserve so much better than someone like me.

I want to make myself better. I want to be worthy of you. I just don’t know where to start. How can I ever grow into the person who deserves you? That person, if they aren’t me, will be amazing. They’ll speak five languages and save babies in Africa and run marathons. They’ll get all your jokes and know all your movie references. They’ll be good-looking.

But for now, I will try. I will try my best to be worthy because I want to be good enough for you.